Sporting life

25 June 2003 — 10:00am

Putting the screws inThe demise of Lleyton Hewitt at the hands of an unknown Croat was, of course, big news in England, but given some of the joyous treatment it got from the London tabloids, you would have thought Ivo Karlovic was an Englishman. Not only did one writer label the giant giant-killer "the Tower of London" but The Sun in particular revelled in the result, noting that it came within 48 hours of another Australian defeat, the Wallabies' rugby union loss to England. "The noise coming from Centre Court at precisely 3.26pm yesterday afternoon was Waltzing Matilda finally crashing into the furniture," reported The Sun's Steven Howard under the headline "Screwitt". "Poor, old matilda, queen of the ballroom, has suddenly developed two left feet." But what was particularly satisfying for the paper was that Karlovic has set up his Wimbledon base in Earls Court, "otherwise known as Kangaroo Valley".

Win some, lose someThe battle for radio's football ratings is hotting up, with yesterday's latest ratings showing 3AW consolidating its after-dark popularity but Triple M now an outright leader in the "blue-belt" afternoon coverage of the game. AW's biggest lead is on Friday night, when its audience jumped from 14.2 to 19.4 to be 7.2 clear of the ABC's 774 and 8.4 ahead of Triple M. But not only has Triple M maintained a 2.5 buffer ahead of AW on Sunday afternoons. In Saturday's all-important midday-6pm slot, the FM station has edged ahead of its AM rival.

Big-name playersKevin Sheedy's love of football tradition has been well documented and so it was yesterday when he noted some special significance about this Friday night's debut by Tim Watson's son Jobe in the match at Telstra Dome. Not only will he run out alongside Dustin Fletcher (son of Ken), Joel Reynolds (grandson of Dick) and James Hird (grandson of Allan) - Hird's father, Allan jnr, also played a handful of games for the club - but lining up for Geelong will be Gary Ablett jnr (son of Cats legend Gary).

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A grand exitNot all of the Watson clan will be in the Telstra Dome crowd on Friday when Jobe makes his long-awaited debut for the Bombers. In fact, spare a thought for Jobe's grandfather, 75-year-old Geoff Lynch, who for weeks had delayed making his usual trek to Western Australia so as not to miss seeing the 18-year-old play. But no sooner had he finally made arrangements to travel this week than Jobe was picked for his first game. The upshot is that grandpop will now be relying on listening to ABC radio, on which it just so happens Jobe's father, Tim, is its Friday night special comments man (although late yesterday he was planning to chat to the station about rearranging his workload so as to avoid commenting while the game is in progress).

Paying up (and paying out)With all the fallout over Carlton's under-the-table payments and salary-cap rorts, we wonder how this admission by Andrew McKay will go over at AFL headquarters. When the dashing defender joined the Blues from South Australian club Glenelg in 1993, the AFL fined him $10,000 for having written to various Victorian clubs warning them that if they drafted him, he would refuse to play for them. But McKay tells today's edition of Inside Football that he never got round to forking out the dosh, simply because an "anonymous benefactor" did it for him. And while not elabor-[FUBreak]ating on that part of the process, he does, however, tell interviewer Dwayne Russell a classic tale involving fellow South Australian Robert Pyman, now assistant to Kangaroos coach Dean Laidley, who was also fined $10,000 for a similar indiscretion before joining the Roos. The pair fronted a league hearing on the same night and, according to McKay, Pyman told the commission, "The only reason you blokes are fining us 10 grand is for the same reason that a dog licks its balls: because it can". Noted McKay: "So he (Pyman) got his money's worth anyway."

Hail McHale, the horseAnd omen punters take note. Following the death this week of John McHale, the son of Collingwood legend Jock McHale, lining up in race five at Sandown today will be McHale, raced by a partnership that includes Magpie stalwart Jack Kennedy and the club's chief executive, Greg Swann. No need to ask the horse's colours - black and white, of course.